Slideshow: Profs Say Fukushima Plant Passed Ultimate Test

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant performed beyond its best expectations after being struck by a mammoth earthquake and a 40-ft-high tidal wave in 2011, experts said last week.

More than two years after the earthquake and tsunami struck, studies are now showing that radiation exposure levels were much lower than originally predicted. Thus far, the only deaths directly attributed to the nuclear plant have been related to the evacuation of residents, and not to radiation exposure. ”The powerplant did an incredible job,” Jeff Terry, an associate professor of physics at Illinois Institute of Technology, told Design News. “Even with multiple meltdowns and explosions, there were no radiation-related fatalities.”

The performance of the plant has been a surprise to some. Media reports initially following the disaster predicted thousands, and in some cases, tens of thousands, of fatalities.

But a recent study published in Transactions of the Japan Academy indicated that radioactive cesium levels were too low to detect in 99 percent of the 22,000 residents examined in Fukushima Prefecture over the past two years. “Internal exposure levels of residents are much lower than estimated,” wrote Ryugo Hayano, a professor of physics at the University of Tokyo in the recently published study.

To be sure, there are still many legitimate concerns about the effects of the disaster on the plant. Thousands of Fukushima residents still can’t return to their homes and groundwater at the plant is contaminated. Tea leaves, rice, beef, and other agricultural products may also be affected by low doses of radiation. Moreover, molten fuel almost certainly flowed through steel reactor vessels and is now believed to be residing inside concrete containment buildings, where it may have to remain for years. ”We won’t know how bad it is until someone gets in there,” Terry told us. “And that could take five to 10 years.”

Still, exposure levels have been low for residents and plant workers alike. First-year radiation doses for individuals in the area of greatest exposure were measured at 2 rems (a rem is a measure of biological damage to tissue), according to a University of California-Berkeley physics professor in a recent Wall Street Journal article. Those levels are only slightly higher than what individuals are typically subjected to, but are not considered dangerous.

On average, 0.6 rems per year is normal, while nuclear powerplant workers are limited to about 5 rems per year. According to the 1982 book, Nuclear Power: Both Sides by Michio Kaku, 1,000 rems would kill a person a few days after exposure, 500 rems would kill half of the exposed population within a few weeks, 200 to 400 rems would cause radiation sickness and hemorrhaging, and 50 rems would cause no immediate visible effects, but could induce long-term damage.

”In this case, the public got hardly any dose at all,” James F. Stubbins, a professor of nuclear, plasma, and radiological engineering at the University of Illinois, told Design News. “And the workers’ doses were low, too.”

I happen to live very near TMI and I would much rather live near a modern coal burning power plant. There are too many incidents at TMI. Like the one last year (September 2012) where radioactive steam was released into the atmosphere. The original news reports stated that the core was briefly exposed, but there was no danger to the public. That news story has been scrubbed. I read that it was another case of a stuck valve at TMI, which limited coolant flow causing the coolant to overheat. A safety valve popped releasing radioactive steam and triggering a shutdown of the reactor. At least the auto-shutdown functioned. Otherwise, we might have had a repeat of 1979.

There is a saying in aviation: A new design of an aircraft will not be issued until the weight of the paperwork in the application exceeds the weight of the aircraft. I believe nuclear power plants are the same way.

As an aside: please get your facts right. At the time the WTC was designed, the 707 was the state of the art. There was no 737.

But that's not the point of discussion here.

The failure at the Fukushima Daichi was not really a failure of nuclear power as much as it was a failure of civil engineering to protect the plant. The design parameters were simply too lenient.

There are new plant designs that are more fail-safe. The new AP 1000 design has finally been approved by the NRC. China is building on these designs now.

Regarding the learning experiences, allow me to point out that when the review process is as long and bureaucratic as anything in Nuclear is, the opportunity to "learn" anything is diminished. We have used bureaucracy to bollix up nuclear engineering to the point where we have little hope of being permitted to improve upon existing designs. Furthermore, if you chose to build something that might be revolutionary, such as a thorium fuel based reactor, you might as well give up right now.

The answer will almost always be NO, even if it is a vast improvement over what we are doing now. Since the days of TMI, we have staffed the industry with drones who would be lost without their paperwork.

Oddly enough, if we want a safer industry, we need to allow for innovation, and that means we need to make it less bureaucratic. There is an extreme at both ends of the spectrum. We went from an anything goes environment of the 1960s to an uber bureaucratic insanity by the 1990s. While I'm not in favor of removing all bureaucratic review, we need to allow for some lighter weight review cycles if we have any hope of updating anything.

Given the catastrophic events that let to the issue at Fukishima, and comparing it with the Chernobyl incident it seems that this plant did indeed contain a vast amount of radaition when put under unbelievable stress. However what this shows is opportunities for future plants that can survive something in this magnitude or greater thru automation, perhaps shutdown protocol could have averted even this paltry exposure???

Nice list of the shortcomings, Patb2009. A lot of the regulatory control over the energy industry has been gutted during the last few decades. So I'm not surprised a post-Fukushima operation could get the OK without new retraints

Chuck, as your article points out, the number of illnesses and deaths from a really bad nuclear power plant accident are very low. Even those out year predictions are just that, predictions. Here in Chicago, there is a coal fired plant that opponents claim cause many more illnesses that claimed for Fukushima.

With the desire to reduce carbon emissions and provide abundant power clashing, it is a real shame that more people don't look at the actual numbers.

Your teacher was not wrong: 1) nuclear reactors only pose a threat to health if they have a substantial failure; coal plants provide a continuous and ongoing threat. 2) under normal conditions, exposure to fugitive radioactive ions is higher for coal. There are a number of scientific studies that make this conclusion. 3) the total accessible exposure is higher for coal plants because they are in greater number and less judiciously sited. 4) other emmissions such as mercury, arsenic, VOCs, sulphides, fine particulates, etc. from coal are unmatched by nuclear. 5) the volume of hazardous solid waste produced is much higher and less well contained with coal compared to nuclear.

I am an avowed proponent of nuclear power, just not the type that the US government has instituted. I do not consider the Fukushima power plant a measure of success.

Ask yourself what would the present conditions be like if this been a coal fired plant instead of a nuclear power plant? The affected zone would have been confined to the facility and we would not be arguing about measures of success, for two things.

There are some amazing oversights in the implementation of this power plant that were apparent long before this earthquake. That they were not addressed is a condemnation of the culture, both there and abroad. I know we can do better so I am not ready to condemn nuclear power because of the failure at Fukishima.

To argue that we can use wind and solar power as a substitute for nuclear. coal or natural gas power plants does not even merit a response.

Given what we know already, we have the ability to do nuclear power safely. That we haven't yet is an example of the same failure mode in culture that is clearly demonstrated by the Fukushima power plant and US government mandates.

Design News readers spoke loudly and clearly after our recent news story about a resurgence in manufacturing -- and manufacturing jobs. Commenters doubted the manufacturers, describing them as H-1B visa promoters, corporate crybabies, and clowns. They argued that US manufacturers aren’t willing to train workers, preferring instead to import cheap labor from abroad.

Using wireless chips and accessories, engineers can now extract data from the unlikeliest of places -- pumps, motors, bridges, conveyors, refineries, cooling towers, parking garages, down-hole drills and just about anything else that can benefit from monitoring.

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